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Akron author is the latest visitor to the Little Free Library at I Promise Village

Kenny "JoJo" Smith gave away his children's book at LeBron James Family Foundation's housing complex, as part of WKYC's efforts to build a culture of reading locally

AKRON, Ohio — Editor's note: The video in the player above is from a previously published, related story. 

3News is your Education Station and we take that responsibility seriously.

Last spring, when WKYC Studios unveiled a Little Free Library in Akron at the LeBron James Family Foundation’s I Promise Village, we made a promise of our own: to give away books regularly to families living at the Village housing complex, and to invite local authors to come talk to the students and their parents.

And we’ve continued to do just that. This week Kenny “Jo-Jo” Smith was our special guest. Smith is a familiar face in Akron – he’s a basketball coach at the Ed Davis Community Center there.

He visited the I Promise Village earlier this week to encourage kids to read and give away copies of his book “We Love Our Daddy."

When one girl said, "You don't look like an author," Smith seized the opportunity to talk about the fact that anyone can be a writer-- and that the I Promise students can grow up to be authors too.

He even got a chance to visit with LeBron’s mom, Gloria, who was working at the Village that day. 

It’s all part of our station’s ongoing efforts to help students across Northeast Ohio develop the literacy skills they need to succeed in school.

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